Times Union: Colonie FD Article

[INIT915 1,119]

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/One-town-35-chiefs-1370649.php

COLONIE -- With an all-volunteer force, you might expect Colonie's firefighting to be a low-cost operation.

You'd be wrong.

Colonie spends $8.8 million, more than the city of Schenectady's full-time paid force of firefighters. And the Capital Region suburb has more fire vehicles than the cities of Albany, Schenectady and Troy combined, a Times Union investigation has found.

[SOUSGT 357]

http://www.timesunio...efs-1370649.php

The article lacks one important peice of information. While they report the town has 12 fire disctricts, they fail to mention the size of the town or number of residents served. is a district 1 square mile or 100? not being from the area I cant guess. It would have been nice if the reporter did his homework.

[Boss159 7]

The article lacks one important peice of information. While they report the town has 12 fire disctricts, they fail to mention the size of the town or number of residents served. is a district 1 square mile or 100? not being from the area I cant guess. It would have been nice if the reporter did his homework.

From my limited knowledge of the town is that it is very large, as for each individual district i do not know, However if you take the 8.8 million and divide by 12 then you get $733,333 average per department, that to me is a lot of money, in my small department that's a new engine, rescue and brush truck all at the same time with money left for a new chiefs car. Two years with that much money its land and a new firehouse, then a ladder the following year and so on, granted that does not include utilities, fuel and such, but i am sure they can cut some of their budgets and do a few more boot drops and events to raise money like we do.

[INIT915 1,119]

The article lacks one important peice of information. While they report the town has 12 fire disctricts, they fail to mention the size of the town or number of residents served. is a district 1 square mile or 100? not being from the area I cant guess. It would have been nice if the reporter did his homework.

From Wikipedia:

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 57.9 square miles (149.9 km²). 56.1 square miles (145.2 km²) of it is land and 1.8 square miles (4.7 km²) of it (3.11%) is water.

But if it were 100 sq. miles, would that warrant 12 agencies? They have one PD and one EMS provider, both of which are probably busier, by call volume, then the FD.

[peterose313 345]

According to Wikipedia, It is the most populous suburb of Albany, New York, and is the third largest town in area in Albany County, occupying about 11% of the county. Several hamlets exist within the town. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 79,258. All the land outside the Village of Beverwyck (now Albany) was referred to as the "Colonie."

The town of Colonie is north of Albany, New York, and is at the northern border of the county. Within the town of Colonie are two villages, one also known as Colonie and the other known as Menands.

The population density and area have already been given by someone else.

Edited May 10, 2011 by peterose313

[th1 1]

the town is very well protected by the 12 fds. Each fd covers a large area and several of them have specialties. And yes several of them should be merged or considered to be merged( example Colonie village, Midway, Fuller Rd, and Stanford heights are all located on Central Ave (rte 5) all less than 5 miles from each other. Others that could be considered for something are Menands and Schuyler Heights. They are less than a mile from each other.

[Bnechis 3,961]

From Wikipedia:

But if it were 100 sq. miles, would that warrant 12 agencies? They have one PD and one EMS provider, both of which are probably busier, by call volume, then the FD.

The town is 56 square miles. as a comparison it is the size of Somers and Yorktown combined (2-3 FD's). With a population about the same as New Rochelle (1 FD).

[firemoose827 324]

Just a little additional info, these departments also cover a very large Mall, Colonie Center Mall, and have runs there daily. Two of the departments mentioned as being on western turnpike (Route 20) cover this mall. I believe each of these two stations only have a couple of engines and a ladder, not sure.

I believe they do need to merge a few of these departments into a few strategically placed stations.

[mikeinet 37]

I rode with one of these depts for a few months... very solid operations.

There is definitely a lot of apparatus and departments in the area, but they're not sitting around collecting dust. The depts have roles and responsibilities laid out, mutal aid plans (a lot of automatic), and it's a collaborative effort to cover the large area. They're in a constant "growing pain" as many of our volunteer agencies are... they're not seeing 100 people turn out to an AA, let alone a job...

There's also some first response EMS that's done with some of the depts. Article fails to mention too that some of these depts are supplemented with day time paid staff, i'm sure that affects their budget!

I do agree there could probably be some apparatus consolidation, but as noted, a lot of these depts have already done a lot of consolidation.

For example, one of the depts (one of the busier I think) Latham FD has already run 197 fire calls and 211 EMS calls.

And regarding Colonie Mall... when I was up there a few years ago, that place was a deserted diaster waiting to happen! (Sorry, was thinking about the Latham mall...)

Edited May 10, 2011 by mikeinet

[ffp20 14]

They all have boat loads of automatic aid to make sure somebody shows up. If things were rosey, they would be able to cover their calls. A cpl of depts have some paid folks in house for janitorial, administrative tasks, etc. And when a call comes in they become ff's and go. So, if they get injured on a run are they considered vol ff's and get vfbl? they dont get 207a.

[Monty 35]

I was a member with one of the town departments for several years before moving down state. Back then there was some talk of consolidation. The population is about 80K or so, however it can get close to double that during the working day with offices, businesses, shops, hotels etc.

I know my old department (Shaker Road) has gone from having 4 Chiefs and 3 maxi pumpers, 2 mini pumpers, tower ladder and rescue 15 years ago to now having 3 Chiefs, 3 maxi pumpers (2 rescue pumpers) and 1 tower ladder. From the article it mentions some of the other departments downsizing as well and eliminating a truck or a rescue.

Probably about 15 years ago the department hired 3 employees, who have to be volunteer fire fighters and respond 'mutual aid' to the department if there are not enough members. It's worked pretty well. About 13 years ago the department instituted a bunk in program. I think all the town depts have membership requirements to remain active. At Shaker Road you have to either attend a minimum 10% of calls (they run 800+ / year) or spend a certain number of hours as part of the duty crew.

I agree with some of the other posts here that the Town Departments are well run, good inter department team work, strong mutual aid, consistent SOPs and ICS, well trained. I'm not sure how far consolidation is going to go given the classic local rule but it might happen ...

Last thing - the article mentions a budget of $8.8 million, and Colonie EMS budget is $3.8 million. Schenectady Budget for Fire and EMS is $6.6 million (I don't know if they transport). City of Troy Budget is $14.8 million for Fire and EMS. So, the budget for the Town's Fire and EMS is more than Schenectady, but less than Troy - both of which have smaller populations and less area according to wikipedia.

A couple of links for the area ... https://twitter.com/#!/WTEN/local-police-fire-depts and

http://www.shakerroadfire.com/

[JackEMT 77]

A poorly written article in my opinion. They might have had good intentions to raise something that has gone under the radar, but there is little to no real information here. This is obvious from the number of question people have raised here and the research required. There is no information on call volume, the cost per capital compared to other similar areas, the level of coverage (equipment, skill, etc) provided by the departments or a breakdown of manpower (Colonie EMS's website says they do 9,000 calls with 80 paid and 25 volunteers. How many of the 80 paid are administrative and how many are medics/EMT's?).

Maybe someone has a better memory than me, but I thought the 12 departments at one point were independents, then joined to become more centralized.

[x129K 1,393]

They all have boat loads of automatic aid to make sure somebody shows up. If things were rosey, they would be able to cover their calls. A cpl of depts have some paid folks in house for janitorial, administrative tasks, etc. And when a call comes in they become ff's and go. So, if they get injured on a run are they considered vol ff's and get vfbl? they dont get 207a.

Shady as fudge and a poor excuse to get manpower. If you want career men, hire them as such.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Bullseye

[bmfd434 2]

They all have boat loads of automatic aid to make sure somebody shows up. If things were rosey, they would be able to cover their calls. A cpl of depts have some paid folks in house for janitorial, administrative tasks, etc. And when a call comes in they become ff's and go. So, if they get injured on a run are they considered vol ff's and get vfbl? they dont get 207a.

this is true for a few of the departments where the paid staff are volunteers that work in the fire house and when the tones drop then become firefighters but there are also a few departments that have paid firefighters whos only job is to respond to alarms and daily maintenance of the apparatus. these departments employ full time janitors to do fire house up keep. the departments are also the ones that have to highest budgets to cover the cost of 5-6 day time firefighters and other paid personnel ie secretary and janitor. most of the residents are unaware that during the day when the trucks come to there house that it is almost all paid firefighters on the rig as the volunteers have regular jobs and are unable to respond.

as for the redundancy in apparatus, there are currently attempts to reduce this for example one of the busiest departments just got of rid of their rescue and a engine and only replaced it with a new engine because latham rescue 4 borders them. there are in fact only 2 true heavy rescue company's in the town, rescue 2 (colonie village) at the south end of the town and rescue 4 (latham) on the north side of town and they split I87 in half for extrication calls.

I also saw that someone posted run numbers for latham and they are a little off as they are now at 300 ems runs and 240 fire.

[CTFF 65]

http://blog.timesuni...rom-free/11338/

Editorial from the times union on this issue:

"Our opinion: The Town of Colonie has changed; when will fire departments catch up?

Maybe the town of Colonie really needs 12 fire departments. Maybe it needs 35 cars for chiefs to take home. Maybe a town of about 81,600 people needs more firetrucks, ladders and other vehicles than do the region's three cities and their more than 214,000 residents combined.

Then again, maybe not."

[firefighter36 52]

as for the redundancy in apparatus, there are currently attempts to reduce this for example one of the busiest departments just got of rid of their rescue and a engine and only replaced it with a new engine because latham rescue 4 borders them. there are in fact only 2 true heavy rescue company's in the town, rescue 2 (colonie village) at the south end of the town and rescue 4 (latham) on the north side of town and they split I87 in half for extrication calls.

"Only" 2 heavy rescue companies? If a place like New York City Can get by with 5, given the call volume, I'm sure that they can get by with 1. While all of these 12 departments seem to have no shortage of equipment (kudos to their commissioners for equipping their departments as best they can), the overwhelming posts here seem to indicate a lack of "human capital" i.e. staffing. Having an excellent fleet means nothing if the companies aren't staffed and cannot respond and effectively mitigate emergencies.

Disclaimer: My only experience experience up there is driving by most of these fire stations in my travels.

[nysff 18]

This article was poorly written in my opinion and written by a horrible investigative journalist. There is a story here to uncover in Colonie, but it is not the chief's vehicles, which is actually a wrong number. There are 36 fire chief officers in Colonie and only 34 cars, not 35 that he has reported. There are wastes and lots of redundancy. I have to laugh about former NYS Insurance Commish Serio, who is currently Chief of Verdoy. He just pushed his department to buy a quint so that they had their own ladder truck. Verdoy is surrounded on 3 sides by ladders, Midway, Shaker Road, and Latham. Their 4th border is the Mohawk River. A total waste of taxpayer money.

[nysff 18]

this is true for a few of the departments where the paid staff are volunteers that work in the fire house and when the tones drop then become firefighters but there are also a few departments that have paid firefighters whos only job is to respond to alarms and daily maintenance of the apparatus. these departments employ full time janitors to do fire house up keep. the departments are also the ones that have to highest budgets to cover the cost of 5-6 day time firefighters and other paid personnel ie secretary and janitor. most of the residents are unaware that during the day when the trucks come to there house that it is almost all paid firefighters on the rig as the volunteers have regular jobs and are unable to respond.

as for the redundancy in apparatus, there are currently attempts to reduce this for example one of the busiest departments just got of rid of their rescue and a engine and only replaced it with a new engine because latham rescue 4 borders them. there are in fact only 2 true heavy rescue company's in the town, rescue 2 (colonie village) at the south end of the town and rescue 4 (latham) on the north side of town and they split I87 in half for extrication calls.

I also saw that someone posted run numbers for latham and they are a little off as they are now at 300 ems runs and 240 fire.

The Latham Paid Firefighters are not required to have their 229 certs and they should be. The membership at Latham believes the job is only a stepping stone and does not believe that they should have to go to an academy. Also, there are only 2 true heavy rescue vehicels in Colonie. All but 1 department (Maplewood) have very overloaded rescue pumpers and ALL 12 departments have extrication equipment. As far as Latham goes with their massive vehicle, it is a heavy rescue but their members have no clue what to do with it, as I have witnessed their operations first hand as a trained by stander on several of their pin jobs.

[firefighter36 52]

The Latham Paid Firefighters are not required to have their 229 certs and they should be. The membership at Latham believes the job is only a stepping stone and does not believe that they should have to go to an academy. Also, there are only 2 true heavy rescue vehicels in Colonie. All but 1 department (Maplewood) have very overloaded rescue pumpers and ALL 12 departments have extrication equipment. As far as Latham goes with their massive vehicle, it is a heavy rescue but their members have no clue what to do with it, as I have witnessed their operations first hand as a trained by stander on several of their pin jobs.

Doesn't always matter what the membership wants, its about what the law reads. I am not familiar with the size or deployment of the Latham paid staff, but the following applies.

http://www.dhses.ny.gov/ofpc/documents/standards/Part426LawBook.pdf

[nysff 18]

Doesn't always matter what the membership wants, its about what the law reads. I am not familiar with the size or deployment of the Latham paid staff, but the following applies.

http://www.dhses.ny.gov/ofpc/documents/standards/Part426LawBook.pdf

Latham is not a fire district. It is a fire protection district (fpd), which is not bound by the law which accounts for fire distrcits, villages, and cities. They are a private corperation who contract with the town for the Latham Fire Protection District. An FPD is similar to a fire brigade is some ways as they are not municipal. This is going to be a really bad example as the following are an industrial giants, but does GE or IBM require their "firefighters" to go through an academy to obtain their 229 cert? The answer is no. Kodak on the other hand use to make their "firefighters" go through the city of Rochester's fire academy recruit class.

Note: "firefighters" becuase their job titles may actually be Plant Protection or Facilities, however they are there to be on site firefighters.

Even if the law applied to an FPD, the law states 6, which they only employ 5.

[JohnnyOV 2]

Latham is not a fire district. It is a fire protection district (fpd), which is not bound by the law which accounts for fire distrcits, villages, and cities. They are a private corperation who contract with the town for the Latham Fire Protection District. An FPD is similar to a fire brigade is some ways as they are not municipal. This is going to be a really bad example as the following are an industrial giants, but does GE or IBM require their "firefighters" to go through an academy to obtain their 229 cert? The answer is no. Kodak on the other hand use to make their "firefighters" go through the city of Rochester's fire academy recruit class.

Note: "firefighters" becuase their job titles may actually be Plant Protection or Facilities, however they are there to be on site firefighters.

Even if the law applied to an FPD, the law states 6, which they only employ 5.

I know personally for IBM, as I used to work directly for their safety department in Westchester, that they are only a volunteer incipient fire brigade. They are not state trained, rather hire an outside company to come in and provide training on extinguisher use, small hoseline stretching and forceable entry. Their main goal is to extinguish a small incipient fire, rather then try and control a free burning one. Anything bigger then a trashcan fire, they are pretty much under a standing order to back away from the area and evacuate the immediate area. Either way, any type of active fire will warrant the local FD coming in since they still are responsible for determining the cause of the fire.

[CTFF 65]

This is clearly a waste of taxpayer funds and I'm not sure how anyone can even defend this.

[JohnnyOV 2]

This is clearly a waste of taxpayer funds and I'm not sure how anyone can even defend this.

It amazes me that an area, like the Capt, stated earlier, the size of Somers and Yorktown (both about equal size, Somers being slightly bigger) needs 12 different departments with a full assortment of apparatus. Yorktown and somers are pretty much right in line with each other being the most active all volunteer departments in the county (Somers being both EMS and Fire at around 2000-2100, and Yorktown strictly fire at around 600-650) with slightly less population in the combined area then Colonie. Why is it necessary to have 12 departments in an area that 2, or even a well managed 1 could handle? It literally boggles my mind that 12 departments are even able to fit into an area that small. Each department on average only covers 4.6 square miles. I cannot think of a bigger waste of tax payer money, other then burning it for fun, then the situation going on here.

If you want to keep your little fiefdoms, why not keep each department to a single or dual company (engine, truck, or rescue), and dispatch like many counties in Maryland do (Hell this could even work here in Westchester too - OMG BLASPHEMY!). The first due will still be responsible, but you'll be getting auto aid from other departments at the same time. Set the same training standards, the same operational guidelines, the same everything and make it work. Progression while being the most efficient machine you can be is the wave of the future boys. Everyone needs to hop on the train before your customers start pulling rail sections off the tracks to sell for cash........

[NJMedic 96]

"Only" 2 heavy rescue companies? If a place like New York City Can get by with 5, given the call volume,

Keep in mind FDNY also has the squad companies, Haz Mat Company, all Ladders have set of Hurst tools on board, ten NYPD ESU trucks with 2 REPs with each truck.

[Bnechis 3,961]

I know personally for IBM, as I used to work directly for their safety department in Westchester, that they are only a volunteer incipient fire brigade. They are not state trained, rather hire an outside company to come in and provide training on extinguisher use, small hoseline stretching and forceable entry. Their main goal is to extinguish a small incipient fire, rather then try and control a free burning one. Anything bigger then a trashcan fire, they are pretty much under a standing order to back away from the area and evacuate the immediate area. Either way, any type of active fire will warrant the local FD coming in since they still are responsible for determining the cause of the fire.

This all depends on the IBM facility. I was contracted to provide training to IBM EC (emergency control) annually for over 15 years. IBM's EC employee's were full time firefighters/EMT's and we trained at the Poughkepsie, East Fishkill, Kingston, Yorktown and Endicot.

The training included confined space rescue, firefighting, and hazmat technician.

Depending on the IBM location, they operated 2 engines (1 was a foam unit), 1 medium rescue, 1 hazmat unit, 1 hazmat trailer, 1 mini attack and a BLS ambulance.

[helicopper 1,050]

The Latham Paid Firefighters are not required to have their 229 certs and they should be. The membership at Latham believes the job is only a stepping stone and does not believe that they should have to go to an academy. Also, there are only 2 true heavy rescue vehicels in Colonie. All but 1 department (Maplewood) have very overloaded rescue pumpers and ALL 12 departments have extrication equipment. As far as Latham goes with their massive vehicle, it is a heavy rescue but their members have no clue what to do with it, as I have witnessed their operations first hand as a trained by stander on several of their pin jobs.

If they're not required to certify as firefighters how are they called "firefighter"? What's their civil service job title and what do they do for the fire district?

[Monty 35]

If they're not required to certify as firefighters how are they called "firefighter"? What's their civil service job title and what do they do for the fire district?

They don't have civil service titles as they are employees of a private corporation as nysff said. A bit like contracting with Rural Metro (but probably much better).

[Monty 35]

It amazes me that an area, like the Capt, stated earlier, the size of Somers and Yorktown (both about equal size, Somers being slightly bigger) needs 12 different departments with a full assortment of apparatus. Yorktown and somers are pretty much right in line with each other being the most active all volunteer departments in the county (Somers being both EMS and Fire at around 2000-2100, and Yorktown strictly fire at around 600-650) with slightly less population in the combined area then Colonie. Why is it necessary to have 12 departments in an area that 2, or even a well managed 1 could handle? It literally boggles my mind that 12 departments are even able to fit into an area that small. Each department on average only covers 4.6 square miles. I cannot think of a bigger waste of tax payer money, other then burning it for fun, then the situation going on here.

If you want to keep your little fiefdoms, why not keep each department to a single or dual company (engine, truck, or rescue), and dispatch like many counties in Maryland do (Hell this could even work here in Westchester too - OMG BLASPHEMY!). The first due will still be responsible, but you'll be getting auto aid from other departments at the same time. Set the same training standards, the same operational guidelines, the same everything and make it work. Progression while being the most efficient machine you can be is the wave of the future boys. Everyone needs to hop on the train before your customers start pulling rail sections off the tracks to sell for cash........

Well, actually - are you ready for this ......

Based on Wikipedia, Colonie has a land area of 56 square miles ... Greenburgh has a land area of 30 square miles. Populations are about the same 80-86K.

The Town of Greenburgh includes:

Ardsley

Dobbs Ferry

Elmsford

Hastings-on-Hudson

Irvington

Tarrytown

Fairview

Greenville (commonly known as Edgemont)

Hartsdale

So - it shouldn't be that hard to imagine that Colonie has 12 departments when a smaller geographical area (about half the size), and less than 10% larger population has 9 departments.

I'm sure if you were to look at Long Island you might be even more surprised ........

I also think that there are some that might counter your claim of Yorktown being the most active all volunteer departments in Westchester

Edited May 11, 2011 by Monty

[x129K 1,393]

They don't have civil service titles as they are employees of a private corporation as nysff said. A bit like contracting with Rural Metro (but probably much better).

Plain and simple.

[INIT915 1,119]

Well, actually - are you ready for this ......

Based on Wikipedia, Colonie has a land area of 56 square miles ... Greenburgh has a land area of 30 square miles. Populations are about the same 80-86K.

The Town of Greenburgh includes:

Ardsley

Dobbs Ferry

Elmsford

Hastings-on-Hudson

Irvington

Tarrytown

Fairview

Greenville (commonly known as Edgemont)

Hartsdale

So - it shouldn't be that hard to imagine that Colonie has 12 departments when a smaller geographical area (about half the size), and less than 10% larger population has 9 departments.

That makes perfect sense. I think there have even been a thread or two regarding Greenburgh's multiple agencies, and the potential for consolidation. And that goes for both PD as well as FD.